Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Anvil Sparks by R.L. Whiteside

"If the entire church would work as hard for the Lord as a faction will work to carry its point, nothing could stop its progress."

"A gospel feast is better for the church that a religious spree."

"In churches, as in nations, peace at any price generally reults in war at any cost."

"Making the world safe for democracy may be the proper thing, but no church was ever made better by democracy."

"Some additions to the church are not conversions to the Lord."

Thursday, May 24, 2012

Does This Sound Like A godless Nation To You?


Preambles of Your United States Constitutions:



1.       Alabama 1901, Preamble. We the people of the State of Alabama, invoking the favor and guidance of Almighty God, do ordain and establish the following Constitution…

2.       Alaska 1956, Preamble. We, the people of Alaska, grateful to God and to those who founded our nation and pioneered this great land…

3.       Arizona 1911, Preamble. We, the people of the State of Arizona, grateful to Almighty God for our liberties, do ordain this Constitution...

4.       Arkansas 1874, Preamble. We, the people of the State of Arkansas, grateful to Almighty God for the privilege of choosing our own form of government; for our civil and religious liberty; and desiring to perpetuate its blessings, and secure the same to ourselves and posterity; do ordain and establish this Constitution.

5.       California 1879, Preamble. We, the People of the State of California, grateful to Almighty God for our freedom, in order to secure and perpetuate its blessings, do establish this Constitution.

6.       Colorado 1876, Preamble. We, the people of Colorado, with profound reverence for the Supreme Ruler of the Universe…

7.       Connecticut 1818, Preamble. The People of Connecticut, acknowledging with gratitude the good Providence of God in permitting them to enjoy…

8.       Delaware 1897, Preamble. Through Divine Goodness all men have, by nature, the rights of worshipping and serving their Creator according to the dictates of their consciences.

9.       Florida 1885, Preamble. We, the people of the State of Florida, grateful to Almighty God for our constitutional liberty, establish this Constitution...

10.   Georgia 1777, Preamble. We, the people of Georgia, relying upon protection and guidance of Almighty God, do ordain and establish this Constitution...

11.   Hawaii 1959, Preamble. We, the people of Hawaii, Grateful for Divine Guidance, establish this Constitution…

12.   Idaho 1889, Preamble. We, the people of the State of Idaho, grateful to Almighty God for our freedom, to secure its blessings…

13.   Illinois 1870, Preamble. We, the people of the State of Illinois, grateful to Almighty God for the civil, political and religious liberty which He hath so long permitted us to enjoy and looking to Him for a blessing on our endeavors.

14.   Indiana 1851, Preamble. We, the People of the State of Indiana, grateful to Almighty God for the free exercise of the right to choose our form of government.

15.   Iowa 1857, Preamble. We, the People of the State of Iowa, grateful to the Supreme Being for the blessings hitherto enjoyed, and feeling our dependence on Him for a continuation of these blessings establish this Constitution.

16.   Kansas 1859, Preamble. We, the people of Kansas, grateful to Almighty God for our civil and religious privileges establish this Constitution.

17.   Kentucky 1891, Preamble. We, the people of the Commonwealth are grateful to Almighty God for the civil, political and religious liberties...

18.   Louisiana 1921, Preamble. We, the people of the State of Louisiana, grateful to Almighty God for the civil, political and religious liberties we enjoy.

19.   Maine 1820, Preamble. We the People of Maine acknowledging with grateful hearts the goodness of the Sovereign Ruler of the Universe in affording us an opportunity ... And imploring His aid and direction…

20.   Maryland 1776, Preamble. We, the people of the state of Maryland, grateful to Almighty God for our civil and religious liberty...

21.   Massachusetts 1780, Preamble. We... the people of Massachusetts, acknowledging with grateful hearts, the goodness of the Great Legislator of the Universe in the course of His Providence, an opportunity and devoutly imploring His direction...

22.   Michigan 1908, Preamble. We, the people of the State of Michigan, grateful to Almighty God for the blessings of freedom establish this Constitution.

23.   Minnesota 1857, Preamble. We, the people of the State of Minnesota, grateful to God for our civil and religious liberty, and desiring to perpetuate its blessings:

24.   Mississippi 1890, Preamble. We, the people of Mississippi in convention assembled, grateful to Almighty God, and invoking His blessing on our work…

25.   Missouri 1845, Preamble. We, the people of Missouri, with profound reverence for the Supreme Ruler of the Universe, and grateful for His goodness, establish this Constitution…

26.   Montana 1889, Preamble. We, the people of Montana, grateful to Almighty God for the blessings of liberty establish this Constitution…

27.   Nebraska 1875, Preamble. We, the people, grateful to Almighty God for our freedom, establish this Constitution…

28.   Nevada 1864, Preamble. We the people of the State of Nevada, grateful to Almighty God for our freedom establish this Constitution.

29.   New Hampshire 1792, Part I. Art. I. Sec. V: Every individual has a natural and unalienable right to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience.

30.   New Jersey 1844, Preamble. We, the people of the State of New Jersey, grateful to Almighty God for civil and religious liberty which He hath so long permitted us to enjoy, and looking to Him for a blessing on our endeavors.

31.   New Mexico 1911, Preamble. We, the People of New Mexico, grateful to Almighty God for the blessings of liberty…

32.   New York 1846, Preamble. We, the people of the State of New York, grateful to Almighty God for our freedom, in order to secure its blessings…

33.   North Carolina 1868, Preamble. We the people of the State of North Carolina, grateful to Almighty God…

34.   North Dakota 1889, Preamble. We, the people of North Dakota, grateful to Almighty God for the blessings of civil and religious liberty, do ordain and establish this constitution.

35.   Ohio 1852, Preamble. We, the people of the State of Ohio, grateful to Almighty God for our freedom, to secure its blessings and promote our common welfare, do establish this Constitution.

36.   Oklahoma 1907, Preamble. Invoking the guidance of Almighty God, in order to secure and perpetuate the blessing of liberty; to secure just and rightful government; to promote our mutual welfare and happiness, we, the people of the State of Oklahoma, do ordain and establish this Constitution.

37.   Oregon 1857, Preamble. All men shall be secure in the Natural right, to worship Almighty God according to the dictates of their own consciences.

38.   Pennsylvania 1776, Preamble. WE, the people of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, grateful to Almighty God for the blessings of civil and religious liberty, and humbly invoking His guidance, do ordain and establish this Constitution.

39.   Rhode Island 1842, Preamble. We, the people of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, grateful to Almighty God…

40.   South Carolina 1778, Preamble. We, the people of the State of South Carolina, in Convention assembled, grateful to God for our liberties, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the preservation and perpetuation of the same.

41.   South Dakota 1889, Preamble. We, the people of South Dakota, grateful to Almighty God…

42.   Tennessee 1796, Preamble. ...in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and ninety-six ...

43.   Texas 1845, Preamble. Humbly invoking the blessings of Almighty God, the people of the State of Texas, do ordain and establish this Constitution.

44.   Utah 1896, Preamble. Grateful to Almighty God for life and liberty, we, the people of Utah…

45.   Vermont 1777, Preamble. That all persons have a natural and unalienable right, to worship Almighty God, according to the dictates of their own consciences and understandings, as in their opinion shall be regulated by the word of God; ... Nevertheless, every sect or denom-ination of Christians ought to observe the Sabbath or Lord's day, and keep up some sort of religious worship, which to them shall seem most agreeable to the revealed will of God.

46.   Virginia 1776, Preamble. That religion or the duty which we owe to our Creator, and the man-ner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence.

47.   Washington 1889, Preamble. We, the people of the State of Washington, grateful to the Supreme Ruler of the Universe for our liberties, do ordain this constitution.

48.   West Virginia 1872, Preamble. Since through Divine Providence we enjoy the blessings of civil, political and religious liberty, we, the people of West Virginia, in and through the provisions of this Constitution, reaffirm our faith in and constant reliance upon God…

49.   Wisconsin 1848, Preamble.  We, the people of Wisconsin, grateful to Almighty God for our freedom, in order to secure its blessings, form a more perfect government, insure domestic tranquility and promote the general welfare, do establish this constitution.

50.   Wyoming 1890, Preamble. We, the people of the State of Wyoming, grateful to God…

"All Gave Some - Some Gave All"


May we never live such selfish lives that we forget to honor their sacrifice. Let us never forget their names, their faces or their families.

Sunday, May 13, 2012

The Anvil Of God's Word


Last eve I passed beside a blacksmith's door
And heard the anvil ring the vesper chime;
When looking in, I saw upon the floor,
Old hammers worn with beating years of time.

"How many anvils have you had," said I,
"To wear and batter these hammers so?"
"Just one," said he; then with a twinkling eye,
"The anvil wears the hammers out, you know."

And so, I thought, the anvil of God's Word,
For ages, skeptics blows have beat upon;
Yet, though the noise of falling blows was heard,
The anvil is unharmed - the hammers gone.

by John Clifford

Happy Mother's Day - 2012

Wednesday, May 09, 2012

"Coat-Hanger Deaths"?


Chilean Study Proves that Outlawing Abortion Does Not Lead to “Coat-hanger Deaths”

Posted by Leon H. Wolf (Diary)
Tuesday, May 8th at 10:52AM EDT
For decades, supporters of abortion on demand have insisted on two completely unproven assertions concerning what would happen if abortion were made generally illegal in this country. First, they have asserted, somewhat counter-intuitively and again without any proof, that such a law would not work, and women would continue to get abortions. Second, based on the first unfounded assertion, they insist that therefore women would be forced into “back alley abortions” which would presumably always be performed with a dirty coat-hanger, thus leading to massive maternal mortality. These two pronouncements have been peddled uncritically with all the fervor (and factual backing) of a particularly obnoxious street corner preacher wearing a “THE END IS NEAR” sandwich sign by virtually everyone who supports abortion on demand. Now, for the first time, a scientific study published in a peer-review journal has scientifically disproven both assertions.

Of course, these assertions have been from day one based on fabrications generated by the abortion industry. As Bernard Nathanson, co-founder of NARAL, admitted:
We aroused enough sympathy to sell our program of permissive abortion by fabricating the number of illegal abortions done annually in the U.S. The actual figure was approaching 100,000 but the figure we gave to the media repeatedly was 1,000,000. Repeating the big lie often enough convinces the public. The number of women dying from illegal abortions was around 200-250 annually. The figure we constantly fed to the media was 10,000. These false figures took root in the consciousness of Americans convincing many that we needed to crack the abortion law.
“Another myth we fed to the public through the media was that legalizing abortion would only mean that the abortions taking place illegally would then be done legally. In fact, of course, abortion is now being used as a primary method of birth control in the U.S. and the annual number of abortions has increased by 1500% since legalization.
Of course, the revelation that these facts were made up out of thin air has not in the least dissuaded the abortion industry from insisting that they nonetheless conveyed a true story – “fake, but accurate” did not originate with Dan Rather. Problematically, no one had conducted a scientific study to evaluate the evidence one way or another, so these lies took root in the public’s mind and the burden fell on opponents of abortion to disprove an assertion that had never been founded in fact in the first place.
Enter Dr. Elard Koch, an epidemiologist from the Department of Family Medicine, Faculty of Medicine at the University of Chile. Chile provides a somewhat unique opportunity to study the issue of the effects of making abortion illegal. In recent history (in particular since a number of advances that have overall reduced maternal mortality worldwide), most countries that have changed their abortion laws have made abortion more widely accessible, not less. Chile, on the other hand, has moved in the opposite direction. Before 1989 in Chile, abortion was largely legal, but in 1989, Chile banned all “therapeutic” abortions, thus providing an actual laboratory in which we might study the question, “What happens when abortion is made illegal?”
The study by Dr. Koch and his team is vitally important and should be read in its entirety. Most importantly, the study conclusively showed that a) outlawing abortion is remarkably effective at reducing the number of abortions that take place in a country, including clandestine ones, and b) there is absolutely no link between making abortion illegal and an increase in the number of deaths from clandestine abortions. In Koch’s own words about the conclusions of his study:
In Chile, therapeutic abortion was prohibited in 1989 since it was considered unnecessary for protecting the life of the mother and her baby. From the perspective of the Chilean medical practice, the exceptional cases in which the life of the mother is at risk are regarded as a medical ethics problem to be solved by applying the principle of double effect and the concept of indirect abortion.
Thus, in Chile, exceptional problems that require medical intervention to save the life of the mother are considered a decision of medical ethics and not a legal issue. Therefore, any kind of directly provoked abortion was prohibited in 1989, in agreement with Article 19 of the Chilean Constitution which protects the life of the unborn.
The second question — does it save lives? — is very complex and important. We can address this important issue from different perspectives.
First, from a public health view, restrictive laws are hypothesized to cause a dissuasive effect on the population, similar to restrictions on tobacco or alcohol consumption. We observed that reduction of maternal mortality in Chile was paralleled by the number of hospitalizations attributable to complications of clandestine abortions. While over 50% of all abortion-related hospitalizations were attributable to complications of clandestine abortions during the 1960s, this proportion decreased rapidly in the following decades.
Indeed, only 12-19% of all hospitalization from abortion can be attributable to clandestine abortions between 2001 and 2008. These data suggest that over time, restrictive laws may have a restraining effect on the practice of abortion and promote its decrease. In fact, Chile exhibits today one of the lowest abortion-related maternal deaths in the world, with a 92.3% decrease since 1989 and a 99.1% accumulated decrease over 50 years.
Second, from the perspective of human life, especially if a developing country is looking to simultaneously protect the life of the mother and the unborn child, a plausible hypothesis after the Chilean study is that abortion restriction may be effective when is combined with adequately-implemented public policies to increase educational levels of women and to improve access to maternal health facilities. A restrictive law may discourage practice, which is suggested by the decrease of hospitalizations due to clandestine abortions estimated in Chile.
Third, from the perspective of protecting human life from the very beginning, obviously, abortion restriction saves many lives, in contrast to countries where elective — on demand — abortion is allowed, because in these countries all the unborn lose their lives.
Finally, it is necessary to remark that our study confirms that abortion prohibition is not related to overall rates of maternal mortality. In other words, making abortion illegal does not increase maternal deaths: it is a matter of scientific fact in our study.
Read, as they say, the whole thing.
Not, mind you, that anything as pedantic as scientific evidence is expected to have any impact on the rhetoric of the same charming people who manufactured and sold “coathanger pendants” a couple years ago. The abortion industry has never been about truth, facts or logic. But to the extent that people in the middle remain persuadable by objectivity, a major arrow in the quiver of the merchants of death has been irretrievably destroyed.

From redstate.com

Friday, May 04, 2012

Aggressive Propaganda

Many in the National News Media only reports  the news it wants you to know. This kind of reporting can be classified as subtle propaganda. For example, columnist Dan Savage is described by Time Magazine as, "the founder of the ‘It Gets Better’ project — a series of web videos devoted to helping victims of bullying" when in fact they know that this is not the whole truth of the matter. According to the It Gets Better Project's own web-site, the project "was created to show young LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender) people the levels of happiness, potential, and positivity their lives will reach – if they can just get through their teen years. The It Gets Better Project wants to remind teenagers in the LGBT community that they are not alone — and it WILL get better." Even Wikipedia got this right, "In 2010, Savage and his husband [sic] Terry Miller began the It Gets Better Project to help prevent suicide among LGBT youth."

While the many in the National News Media engages in subtle propaganda, the LGBT and like organizations, promoting their insidiousness in society are much more aggressive in their propaganda. Focusing, in a speech to a group of high school journalists in Seattle, on what he called the “hypocrisy” of Christians, Savage said:
“We can learn to ignore the bulls— in the Bible about gay people… the same way we have learned to ignore the bulls— in the Bible about shellfish, about slavery, about dinner, about farming, about menstruation, about virginity, about masturbation. We ignore bulls— in the Bible about all sorts of things.”

One of the attendees, Rick Tuttle, a journalism advisor from Sutter Union High School in California, told Fox News his students were surprised that instead of an anti-bullying message, they received “a vulgar, profanity-laced attack on Christians.” The event’s organizers, the National Scholastic Press Association and Journalism Education Association, later apologized. How ironic that no one stood up against the bullying tactics at an anti-bullying event. I guess, better to apologize than to confront wickedness when it occurs. Savages' rant is a form of aggressive propaganda.

"Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution" (2 Tim. 3:12).

Subtle Propaganda


B
attles may be fought by conventional means and in a single location but wars are often fought by many methods and in many different places. Propaganda is an important element in war. Propaganda is defined by moderns as "Manipulation of information to influence public opinion... an element of psychological warfare." ("propaganda." Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., 1994-2010). Generally speaking the modern difference between propaganda and persuasion is that persuasive arguments can stand up to the scrutiny of truth and propaganda cannot! Thus propaganda is seen as the dispensing of misinformation and persuasion as a hearty discussion of the facts of a position... but we should be careful herein; as beauty is in the eye of the beholder so also is the difference between propaganda and persuasion. The modern homo-infatuation rhetoric and "hate" crimes demagoguery crowd are ever vigilant in their war on Christianity. The photographic included in this blog is a J.C. Penney's Mother's Day calendar. While pretending to be neutral in the culture war they have hired Ellen DeGeneres, an openly outspoken lesbian, to be their spokesperson. This calendar is an excellent example of subtle propaganda.
"But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat..." (Mat. 13:25).